


morning, sleeping beauty

by starkly



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Accidental Cuddling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-05-15
Packaged: 2018-06-08 15:05:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6860017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkly/pseuds/starkly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce kept falling asleep in odder and odder places. It should be annoying, but Tony found himself accommodating him instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	morning, sleeping beauty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Knightblazer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Knightblazer/gifts).



> Originally written as a request fic for hulkism @ tumblr, who wanted something fluffy with Bruce falling asleep in odd places. Posted [here](http://aleator.tumblr.com/post/127132911934) August 2015.

“That can’t be comfortable.”

Natasha glanced over her shoulder at the man curled up on the floor of the quinjet, a frayed blanket around him as he slept. Then she shrugged, turning back to the front of the cockpit. “He’s used to it.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s comfortable now.” Tony closed the panel on his suit’s thigh that he’d been fiddling with and stood up. Considering the problem, he clunked across the plane and scooped up Bruce into an awkward bridal carry. If the maneuver woke the sleeping man at all, he didn’t give any indication of it. 

Tony brought him over to the row of seats, but when he tried to set him down, Bruce wrapped his arms around Tony’s armored one and held on.

“What the — ” Tony tried in vain to dislodge Bruce without actively waking him, but the noises of distress eventually got him to give up and sit down with Bruce in his arms, blanket and all.

“This can’t be comfortable either,” Tony muttered, and Natasha smirked at him over her shoulder again. 

“I told you. He’s used to it.”

Tony sighed, adjusted Bruce in his arms a little, and rode like that the rest of the way home. 

—

Bruce never actually apologized for all the weird places he fell asleep. Sure, Tony figured transforming into the Hulk required a huge amount of energy, but falling asleep during _The Wrath of Khan_ was just rude.

“This is getting ridiculous,” he said to Steve over Bruce’s prone form slumped over on the kitchen table by a half-eaten bowl of cereal and the morning newspaper.

“He’s had a busy couple of days,” Steve said with a shrug, pushing several items around in the fridge to make room for the carton of milk Bruce had left on the table. “You fall asleep on the couch in your workshop all the time.”

“Uh, yeah, because I mean to. Because it’s closer than a bed.” Tony glowered at Steve when he took the jug of orange juice out of the fridge and drank straight from it, but Steve wasn’t dissuaded at all.

Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he shrugged again. “Just leave him alone, Stark. He’s earned a rest.”

“Yeah, well. I’m going to finish this before it gets soggy,” he muttered, picking up Bruce’s bowl of cereal and leaving Steve to eat leftover Chinese straight from the fridge on his own.

—

“We have got to figure this out,” Tony told Bruce as he shoved a cup of coffee into Bruce’s hands.

Bruce made a face, either at the coffee or Tony’s remark. “Figure out what?”

“You falling asleep everywhere. You’re a fire hazard.”

Bruce shook his head and set down the mug. “I already have it figured out. I don’t really sleep well at night, and transformations really tire me out…”

Tony picked up Bruce’s mug and sipped at it. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

Bruce shrugged, fidgeting with the cuff of his sleeve. “Nothing weird. Insomnia, probably. Bad dreams. You don’t have to worry about it.”

“Yesterday Barton said you fell asleep on one of the machines in the weight lifting room.”

“In my defense, there’s a reason I don’t normally go to the gym,” Bruce said innocently, reaching out to take the coffee mug back from Tony but not drinking it.

Tony frowned, clearly debating the pros and cons of taking back the mug again. “Haha, very funny. And everyone thinks you’re the serious one.”

Bruce followed his gaze and shook his head. “You’ve been drinking coffee all day.”

“I’m making up for your caffeine deficiency.”

Sighing, Bruce handed the cup back. “I said don’t worry about it, okay? It doesn’t hurt the team, the other guy can still do his thing, so…”

Tony didn’t take the mug. “That’s not why I brought it up.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow at him. “I can take care of myself. Isn’t that what you’re always telling people?”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t,” Tony replied with another frown. “I might have implied it, but I didn’t say it.”

“Just take the coffee and go.” Bruce held it out again, and this time Tony took the mug without another word. He was halfway out the door when he heard,

“If you actually care you’d get me better tea!”

—

Two days later there’s a whole cabinet in the kitchen filled to the brim with different kinds of tea. Bruce didn’t say anything, but he smiled at Tony the first time he walked in and saw Bruce brewing a pot.

—

Okay, _The Wrath of Khan_ was one thing, but _Pulp Fiction_? A line had to be drawn somewhere.

“I see you falling asleep and I’m not having it. Bruce? Bruce.”

Bruce sat up suddenly, blinking. “What? I’m awake.”

“You were starting to slump.” He nudged Bruce with his elbow. “If you’re tired we can save the movie for another time.”

“No, no. I’m fine. Keep playing.”

Tony eyed him warily but he didn’t stop the film. Bruce seemed fine for a while, and Tony relaxed back into the plush couch cushions. Two thirds of the way through the movie, however, something soft hit his shoulder, and he turned to see Bruce slumped over again, head nodding forward. Scowling, Tony was about to wake him, then stopped, expression softening.

Bruce looked calm, almost peaceful despite his probably uncomfortable position against Tony’s shoulder. So Tony sighed and stayed quiet, watching the rest of the movie on his own. He could always make Bruce finish it some other time.

Two hours later Bruce woke, looking confused. Tony lowered the tablet he’d started working on once the movie had ended.

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty.”

Bruce’s expression turned to alarm. “It’s morning?”

“Nah, it’s only been a couple hours.” Tony grinned. “You looked like you could’ve slept through til morning though.”

“I’m sorry,” Bruce muttered, flushing slightly. “You should have just woken me up.”

“I was going to, but then I had a singular moment of goodwill and let you sleep. You’re welcome.” It wasn’t that much of a hardship anyway. Bruce was a little lumpy but he wasn’t horribly uncomfortable. Though Tony’s left arm was kind of numb now.

Bruce shook his head. “Next time just wake me.”

“Next time? If you want to sleep with me, Bruce, you just have to ask,” Tony said, and laughed at Bruce’s flustered expression.

But Bruce composed himself quickly and retorted, “You have to butter me up with more than tea and movies if you want that to happen.” Then he carefully stretched out and climbed off the couch while Tony gaped at him.

—

So Tony definitely didn’t give Bruce’s (clearly joking) comment anymore thought. Not at all. Not the next day, or the next day, or the day after that. He definitely didn’t spend a good five minutes watching Bruce sleep where he’d found him with his arms pillowed under his head in his lab one morning. Because that would be creepy, and probably indicative of a larger issue.

The issue being that he couldn’t stop thinking about sleeping with Bruce.

It’s not that he’d never thought about it before. He’d thought about the whole team at one point or another. Sometimes more than once. That wasn’t the weird part. No, he was now actually thinking about _sleeping_ with Bruce, literally. Preferably after the other kind of “sleeping with” but he wasn’t picky. And it wasn’t like he didn’t like cuddling either. He cuddled with Pepper. Rhodey was a huge cuddler. So why did he keep trying to convince himself this was a bad idea?

Oh right, because Bruce would never be interested. He’d said Tony needed more than tea and movies to woo him, but what more could he give the guy after all the new clothes, the place to stay, the state of the art lab? Who needed wooed more than that? 

Whatever. He shouldn’t be thinking about it anyway. He should let Bruce sleep in peace, even if it was with his face on top of a pair of forceps.

—

Except, well, Tony always took jokes too far, so what was one more? The next morning a new, state of the art pillow arrived at Stark Tower, and Tony stuck a bow on it and sneaked it into Bruce’s room.

Bruce found him in the lab later, a wry expression on his face as Tony pretended to be completely innocent of any accusations.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You drew a little Iron Man helmet on the tag,” Bruce pointed out, holding up the drawing in question.

Tony shrugged. “That’s ridiculous. I can’t draw.”

“You don’t have to be embarrassed about giving me a pillow.”

That finally got to him. “I’m not embarrassed.”

Bruce looked at him quizzically. “Then why are you pretending it wasn’t you?”

Tony huffed. “I don’t want you to make a big deal out of it. It’s just a pillow, just keep it.”

“I’m not making a big deal and I am keeping it.”

“I — what?”

“I just came down to thank you.” 

“Oh. You’re welcome then.”

Bruce nodded and waved his hand at Tony’s worktable. “I’ll let you get back to it.”

The next time Tony saw Bruce he was asleep on the couch in the main living room again, but at least this time he was curled up on the big fluffy pillow Tony had bought him. Baby steps, he supposed.

—

Encouraged, Tony decided to up his game. He got Bruce a CD of calming nature sounds (a literal CD, these were the sacrifices he made for people), more tea, a joke book with a title about counting sheep, a night light — he was pretty sure Bruce was going to tell him to stop any moment, but he never did, just accepted the gifts with a heavy dose of sarcasm and amusement.

He didn’t stop sleeping everywhere though. It seemed like literally anywhere was good enough for him, though like Natasha had said, Tony supposed he was used to sleeping in worse conditions. He snapped the frames of his glasses a couple times, until Tony made him a pair that could withstand his frequent nap attacks. These Bruce accepted almost shyly, telling him he really didn’t need to, and Tony stared at him in confusion.

“What’s wrong, you don’t want them? Wrong color?”

Bruce shook his head. “No, nothing like that. You just didn’t need to take the time to make them, is all.” 

“Course I didn’t _need_ to.” Tony rolled his eyes. “But I wanted to.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Bruce slipped on the frames. “Do I want to know where you got my prescription?”

“Nope,” Tony said cheerfully, brightening up. “So how do they fit?”

“Fine,” Bruce said, pushing them up the bridge of his nose.

“You could probably Hulk out and those wouldn’t break,” Tony went on, looking smug. “Am I a genius or what?”

“Or what, most likely,” Bruce said with a small grin, but Tony let that one slide because he didn’t try to give back the glasses after that.

—

“Sir, Dr. Banner appears to be in distress.”

Tony froze with his hand in the box of Cheez-Its he’d swiped from Clint earlier. “Hulk out distress?”

“Transformation is not imminent, but is a possibility. Elevated heart rate and tension are present. His sleep has become restless.”

Tony took his hand out of the box at last and wiped the cheese dust off on his pants. “Can you wake him?”

“He has not responded to my attempts to do so.”

Tony sighed and slid off the kitchen stool. He didn’t know if anyone else was awake this late and certainly wasn’t going to risk a Hulk incident waiting to find out.

He keyed in the code to Bruce’s floor, knowing Bruce still preferred to sleep with the door locked despite nearly everyone here knowing how to get in one way or another. The apartment was dark but Tony moved across the space easily without any lights. In the bedroom, Bruce is still in bed, tangled in a sheet and clearly having some sort of nightmare. Tony knew he had bad dreams more often than not, but if this one was bad enough for JARVIS to alert him then it must be pretty bad.

“Bruce,” he whispered, not wanting to startle him, but Bruce didn’t respond with much more than a whimper. Tony moved closer, cautious. “Bruce, you know how bad stress is for your health.”

That time Bruce stirred, but Tony didn’t know whether it was because of him or the nightmare. He stopped at the edge of the bed, looking down at Bruce’s scrunched up expression. He probably shouldn’t touch him, but…

“Bruce, you’re just dreaming,” he said a little more loudly, like that would help. Bruce groaned quietly and shifted in his sleep, but still didn’t wake. Tony stared at him a little longer, then muttered “fuck it” and placed a hand on Bruce’s arm.

Bruce’s eyes shot open, wide and green. Tony hastily let go of him, saying,

“It’s Tony, it’s okay you were having a nightmare. Don’t Hulk out.” Tony could feel his heart thumping overtime against his chest as Bruce stared back at him, unmoving. Then Bruce let out a deep breath, eyes fading back to brown, and Tony relaxed just slightly.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce blurted out once he realized what had happened. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Tony sat at the edge of the mattress, shrugging. “Everyone gets nightmares.” He was intimately aware of his own, as well as Pepper’s.

“Not everyone’s nightmares can hurt people,” Bruce muttered, looking bitter.

“You’d be surprised.” Tony frowned and rubbed the back of his neck. He should just leave now, let Bruce go back to sleep, but some weird social obligation forced him to ask, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Thankfully, Bruce was on the same page as him in that regard. “Not really.”

“Thank God. Not because I don’t want to hear it, of course, but because I am a terrible person to confide in.”

Despite his haggard expression, Bruce managed a small smile. “It’s okay, Tony. You don’t have to explain.”

Tony’s shoulders slumped, relaxing a little. “Anything I can get you to fall back asleep? Warm milk? A fifth of whiskey?”

Bruce shook his head. “Not sure if I’m going back to sleep.”

Tony tapped his fingers against his leg thoughtfully. “Want to watch a movie?” he asked, knowing that would put Bruce to sleep almost instantly.

Bruce looked at him in surprise. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?” 

“Nah, I’m not even tired. C’mon.” He stood and held out a hand to pull Bruce out of bed. Reluctantly, Bruce pushed back the sheets and got up. They didn’t go far, just settling on the couch in the living room of Bruce’s apartment, and Tony took the remote to flip through movies. He put on something he’s pretty sure will send Bruce right to sleep, then waited.

Next thing he knew he was blinking sleep from his eyes, looking around in confusion. Right, Bruce’s apartment. The movie.

Well, the movie was definitely over by now, but Tony didn’t remember actually finishing it. He must have accidentally dozed off at some point during the night and slid down the couch, head propped up uncomfortably against the arm of it. More surprisingly, Bruce was curled up on top of him, still asleep.

He wondered if he should move or stay put so Bruce wouldn’t wake. Would Bruce be more embarrassed if Tony let him stay on top of him or if Tony tried to push him off? Bruce never usually got this close to him, and he couldn’t help it — he reached up slowly and ran his fingers through Bruce’s short, slightly curled hair. Bruce shifted at the touch but didn’t wake. At least not until Tony cupped the back of his neck and rubbed his thumb through the hair at Bruce’s nape. Oops, that’s what he got for being handsy.

“Good morning,” he said before Bruce could full wake enough to speak. The man just looked confused. There was an endearing crease mark on his face where Tony’s shirt had bunched up under Bruce’s cheek. “No more nightmares?”

“What…” Bruce rubbed a hand over his face and sat up. “What happened?”

“Nothing untoward, if you’re worried about that,” Tony said with a grin. At least he didn’t think anything like that happened. “The movie was supposed to put you to sleep but it apparently worked on me too.”

“You didn’t have to…” As if realizing he was still kneeling over Tony he slid back to the other side of the couch. “Sorry.”

Tony half shrugged a shoulder, not bothering to get up. “It worked, didn’t it? No more bad dreams.”

“I guess,” Bruce mumbled, not meeting Tony’s gaze.

Tony shrugged again, then stretched out, feet hitting Bruce’s legs. “Anytime,” he said offhandedly, not thinking Bruce would ever bring it up again.

—

To his surprise, Bruce actually did. Tony was down in his lab, tinkering, when Bruce appeared in the doorway, looking weary. Tony glanced up from his work, wondering what Bruce could want at 2 AM.

“I can’t…” Bruce trailed off, seemingly changing his mind. “Do you want to watch a movie?”

It didn’t take an MIT degree to figure out what Bruce was getting at. Tony set down his screwdriver and tugged off his goggles. “Sure thing, big guy. How about some _Lord of the Rings_?”

Bruce just nodded tiredly and wandered over to the couch on the other side of the lab. Tony grabbed a tablet from a nearby table and joined him, telling JARVIS to bring up the second movie on the holoscreen.

Bruce went out like a light before the movie was even half over, and Tony shut it down with a flick of his hand at JARVIS. Bruce was curled up at his side, and rather than get up and disturb him, he spent the night on the couch with him.

(It wasn’t just so he wouldn’t disturb Bruce, he thought but refused to admit he was thinking it. He liked sleeping with Bruce. Even if it did leave him with a pain in the back or neck every time.)

Similar scenarios occurred several more times, and Tony continued to brush it off as totally normal. At least until he dragged himself up to his bedroom after a particularly long and tiring battle against a bunch of acid-spitting mutant lizards, only to find Bruce face down and asleep in his bed. He was still wearing the baggy clothes he put on after de-Hulking, even the sneakers.

Tony took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and said fuck it. Peeling himself out of his undersuit, he crawled into the bed, careful not to rouse Bruce, and fell asleep.

Waking up in his own bed was far more comfortable than any of the other places Bruce had ended up in, but his exhaustion from yesterday probably would’ve knocked him out anywhere. He woke up before Bruce anyway, the other man still in his Hulk-induced nap time. It was late, almost noon, and Tony squinted at the light and made JARVIS tint the windows again so it wouldn’t disturb Bruce.

Apparently he shouldn’t have bothered. As Tony yawned and stretched his limbs, careful not to hit Bruce, Bruce stirred as well, making a soft snuffling sound and curling closer. Tony froze, arms in the air over his head, and stared as Bruce blinked sleepily at him. Damn. He’d wanted to be gone before Bruce woke up. Now he’d have to explain why he’d crawled into bed with him instead of using one of the million other bedrooms.

(Never mind the fact that he should’ve been asking why _Bruce_ was in _his_ bed to begin with.)

Instead Bruce suddenly jerked backwards, looking startled. Tony would’ve thought Bruce would be used to this by now. “What — ”

“Stop, halt, don’t panic. This is my room, you must have come up here by mistake in your state of sleep deprivation, I was too tired to leave so I just jumped in with you,” Tony blurted out all at once. “Your virtue once again remains intact.”

“My…” Bruce was still staring, and he shook his head. “You’re right.”

“Of course I’m right.” Tony paused. “About what?”

“This is getting ridiculous.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Tony said with a shrug, flopping back against the pillow. “It’s kind of endearing.”

Bruce let out an amused huff. “Only you would think that.”

“Probably.” Tony rolled onto his side, propping himself up on his elbow. “You can sleep in my bed whenever you want.”

Bruce stared at him again, clearly uncomprehending. Tony rolled his eyes, leaned in, and kissed him.

Instead of reacting, however, Bruce just froze. Tony pulled back, sensing he _may_ have made a mistake. “Okay, so yeah. That was awkward, my bad. I’m just gonna — ”

He started to get out of bed when Bruce reached out and grabbed his wrist to stop him. “Just sleeping?” he asked slowly, like he was weighing each word with care.

“Sure. No funny business.” Tony tried not to frown as he answered. He wanted more than that, but if it helped Bruce actually get a decent night’s rest in a bed, he’d deal with it.

Bruce chewed at his bottom lip, and Tony surprised himself by waiting patiently while Bruce considered his response. “Maybe some kissing too?”

Tony grinned, unable to help himself. “I could probably live with that.”

Looking determined, Bruce nodded and leaned back in, returning Tony’s earlier kiss. So it wasn’t everything Tony wanted, but it was a good start. They had to take those baby steps, after all.


End file.
